Following money from ad to ad

Hello, reporters! This is a tool I learned about from Craig Silverman, a ProPublica reporter who gave a presentation on ads at IJF.

It’s called the Well Known Resource Network, which is an incredibly broad name for a specific tool. It investigates the ads.txt file of a website, revealing some information on who hosts advertisements there.

For example, I can see that one company places ads on both a New Orleans newspaper and mardigras.com. Given that New Orleans is a Mardi Gras town, that’s not exactly a bombshell reveal, but you can see how this kind of thing could be enlightening.

In his presentation, Craig looks at a misinfo-laden news site, and you can use his slides to navigate your way through an ads.txt. The information is not complete – you can’t see names, for instance, but you can sometimes see connections. Follow the ads, reporters!